The Fear Factor(Page 1 of 2)

A reader asked me recently about how we can
talk about “fearless caregiving” since there is
so very much fear inherent in caregiving.
She found the fact that we could use the word
“fearless” when talking about caregiving to be,
at best, unrealistic.

What a wonderful question to start off the
New Year. I would be lying if I said that I do
not feel fear when dealing with any new
challenge to a loved one’s health and
well-being. Sometimes at these moments, fear is
the only possible emotion. But that’s
precisely when it is most appropriate to begin
the enterprise of becoming a Fearless Caregiver.
I would never advise people to ignore their
fears or hide from them. In fact, fear is a most
valuable tool for family caregivers.

Did you ever notice how effortlessly a
skilled pilot can take a mass of metal safely
into the air, or how a surgeon can wend her way
around vital organs and not only keep the
patient alive, but actually solve their medical
problems? I guarantee you that before they
took the controls or the scalpel in hand for the
first time, they were plenty scared. The thing
that helped them was the knowledge that they
could deal with most anything that was thrown at
them, in the cockpit or the operating room,
since they had hundreds (maybe thousands) of
hours of practice before picking up a scalpel or
entering the cockpit of a plane loaded with
passengers. That is what helps create
their sense of fearlessness—not a lack of fear,
but a better understanding of the issues they
may be facing when flying a plane or operating
on a patient. As a family caregiver, we
unfortunately do not always have that luxury of
advanced preparation; our battle generally
starts with a phone call in the middle of the
night or a diagnostic visit to the doctor’s
office.

What we do have is the fact that there
are so many other family and professional
caregivers who each possess one small piece of
the puzzle you need as a family caregiver.
What are your options when dealing with
Medicare? What worked for them as they tried to
get their loved one living with Alzheimer’s
disease to eat? How do you get your concerns
heard when your loved one is in a hospital or
long-term care facility?